News about Korean new media such as Internet and mobile tech but also on conventional media such as TV, radio, film and newspapers. Purpose of this blog is to function as reference material for a research project (2006-2009) on Korean media and new media, a part of the OED research group and funded by HS Foundation (see: Affiliations). Special thanks to research assistant Katja Heinonen who took care of the blog in 2007-2008.

The translator of the MBC current affairs program “PD Diary,” which is charged with stirring up unfounded fears about the safety of U.S. beef, has testified that staff ignored her opinion and deliberately described downer cows as a risk of causing variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease in humans. “PD Diary” aired a program on mad cow disease on April 29 which stoked a Korea-wide panic about the safety of American beef.

The Ministry for Agriculture, Food, Forestry and Fisheries on Tuesday said it will file civil and criminal charges against the MBC current affairs program “PD Diary” for allegedly exaggerating the risk of mad cow disease from U.S. beef and slandering the government delegation who negotiated the import deal with the U.S.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control officially announced on its homepage on Thursday that test results showed the young American woman reported by the MBC current affairs program "PD Diary" as having died from variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (vCJD), the human form of "mad cow disease", did not die from that illness at all.